As a young person, I had a strong sense of invincibility. Significant failure was not an option for me. I was used to succeeding, and I assumed that I would continue to do so. I was pretty confident that I knew how to handle the challenges of life, and I really didn't see failure too much in the picture of my life.
I believe that Christians can live victorious lives, and that failure is not necessary. However, I also believe that failure often does occur--not because it has to, because we allow it. After I got past the shock of realizing that I had made significant mistakes--mistakes in parenting, mistakes in being the wife that I wanted to be, and mistakes in my relationships with God and others--I had to decide where I was going to go next. While Proverbs 24:16 was a great comfort to me when it says that a righteous person falls seven times, but gets up again, another story in the Bible also gave significant insight in to how God uses failure to accomplish good if we allow it.
Back in the books of Deuteronomy and Joshua, we see a change in leadership. Moses has done a phenomenal job leading a huge group of grouchy, grumpy people through the wilderness. He made his own set of mistakes, but we see that he hands over leadership to a younger man named Joshua. Joshua is given the daunting task of entering the new land and conquering the people there. They were to destroy all the people living there, and Joshua knew that.
However, a very cunning group of people in the new land also knew that they were to be destroyed so they devised a plan to escape annihilation. You know the story...they came to Joshua looking as if they had traveled a long distance and asked to make a peace treaty. Apparently they were very convincing and flattering because Joshua and his leaders immediately made a treaty with them to not only leave them alone, but to defend them from other aggressive people groups.
Just a short time later, Joshua found out that in reality, the people that he had made the treaty with were his close neighbors, the Gibeonites. He had made a huge mistake right at the beginning of his leadership! The Bible says that he never once consulted God about it but just acted quickly in his own wisdom. After all, I am sure that what the Gibeonites presented to him looked quite reasonable and it only seemed right to do what they asked.
Sometimes I have made mistakes because of lack of character. Sometimes I have made big mistakes because of lack of understanding, and sometimes I made mistakes by simply failing to check in with God frequently enough. I think most of the time, I truly wanted what was best and wasn't trying to find my own way, but nevertheless, I messed up.
That is where Joshua found himself. He fully intended on doing what God had asked. If one were to ask him if he purposely disobeyed a command of God or was willfully negligent, he would have been adamant that he had not. As a matter of fact, it was sincerely in his heart to do right, but in a moment of human reasoning and failure to acknowledge God, he made one of the biggest mistakes in the history of his life.
Now what was he going to do? He was in a dilemma--he had failed to do what God said, but he had also made a promise to the Gibeonites to defend them. Joshua did what I am painfully learning to do. He found out where he was at, and started again from there. There wasn't a lot of time for painful regrets and bemoaning the "what ifs." We don't find him wasting time living in the moments of what could have been or should have been. Rather, we find him saying, "I messed up, now let's see where we should go from here." I'm sure he was sorry that he had messed up so badly, but I think he understood the better principle of not letting failure incapacitate him. Rather, he must have understood that starting at the next best place in life gives God an opportunity to still work His plan.
Sure enough, in just a few days, his integrity was challenged. The nations surrounding the Gibeonites decided to take revenge on those that Joshua had mistakenly signed a mutual treaty of protection with. They called for Joshua to come and keep his side of the bargain. They called for Joshua to come and do exactly the opposite of what Joshua had been called by God to do. Joshua knew he had messed up, but he faced the situation with incredible bravery for one who had failed so openly. He gave all his strength to heading in the new direction in spite of the fact that it was the opposite direction of what he should have been doing--defending a group of people that he was to have killed.
The amazing thing is that God says to Joshua, "I'm with you Joshua. You are on the right track." We don't find God saying, "Now look what a mess we have" or "If you had listened to me, you wouldn't find yourself having to defend the Gibeonites." Rather, concerning those against whom Joshua and the Gibeonites were going to fight together, God says in Joshua 10:8, "Fear them not: for I have delivered them into thine hand; there shall not a man of them stand before thee." God lets Joshua know in his moment of fear--in his moment when his failures were so obvious, that He was ready to start in a new direction. As a matter of fact, as the battle gets intense and Joshua is fighting for all he is worth in a battle that he should never had to have been in, God starts fighting for him. In one of the few recording such incidents, God hurls down heavy hailstones from heaven and wipes out more of the enemy than all the men of Gibeon and Joshua combined were able to conquer. Not only that, but it is the only recorded time in the Bible, that God follows an order given by a human being. Joshua orders the sun to stand still so they could finish the battle and it does! The Bible says that God "hearkened to the voice of a man."
What an amazing story of grace--grace on God's part to forgive one who so carelessly messed up the original plan when he should have known better. It's also an amazing story of bravery for one who made such a public mistake. He never excuses himself nor grovels in self pity. Rather, he valiantly starts right where he finds himself, and becomes one of the greatest heroes of the Bible.
No matter where we find ourselves in our failures, there is not a better time to start at the next best place and go from there. God is not limited by our finite understanding--he can make amazing stories out of our failures if we are only willing to get up and valiantly start again. We may feel we are headed in the opposite direction of where we should have been going, but in God's book, u turns are always allowed.
This is what I am learning--mistakes may leave marks that I will never fully recover from, but they don't have to keep me from going forward now. Looking back on the road of life, one may see my skid marks or the damage I caused in my careless collision, but hopefully future generations will see how far down the road I got after my mistake. Maybe they won't remember me for my failures but rather for the great successes that God enabled me to have as He worked with me. Start where you are today. Know you made a mistake, but never let it hold you back from trying again. Expect great things from a loving God. The God who hurled hailstones and stopped the sun in its tracks for a man who failed but tried again will still fight just as valiantly for you if you are willing to take the first steps to try again.
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